Home
by Jude81
Summary: Clarke climbs the hill where Raven waits, ready to tell her the truth. Hurt/Comfort, Romance. Happy ending


She wondered what she looked like as she climbed the hill, huffing and puffing for breath as she swung her legs over the fallen tree. She supposed there was nothing particularly graceful about her clamber up the almost barren, rocky slope. The few trees that had managed to grow at one time on the slope, were now strewn about the rocks as if some giant hand had simply swiped them off a table, uncaring about where they fell.

She wondered how _she_ had managed to maneuver her way over the rocks, if _she_ had slipped and slid, fallen and scraped her palms the almost dozen times that Clarke had done. But then again, _she_ was the probably the strongest of them all, definitely the smartest. _She'd_ probably found an easier way up the hill.

She sighed and stopped, looking up the rest of the way. Maybe another hundred or so feet? She wasn't sure about distances, distance on earth was something she still couldn't quite wrap her mind around. The horizons stretched on forever, broken only by crags straining for the sky, by oceans of trees and rays of light slithering across the grasses.

Distance on the Ark had been measured by her footsteps, the same stride, never breaking or faltering, never backtracking or finding its way around obstacles. There was no stride here, just the faltering hesitancy of the unknown as she gingerly placed each step as precisely as she could on the slipping dirt and shale.

She wiped the sweat dripping down her face, grimacing slightly at the momentary sting on the tiny scrape on her palm. She rubbed her hand on her pants and took a deep breath, gathering the tatters of her courage. She knew she wasn't welcome at the top. The lone figure sitting on the tabletop of boulders, highlighted by the dying rays of the sun had made it more than clear that Clarke was not welcome.

And it hurt. Hurt more than she would have guessed, because at some point _she_ had become important. More important than the rest of them, probably even more important than her mother. And she couldn't pinpoint the exact moment when everything had changed, when she'd realized that the hollowed out feeling in her chest wasn't just guilt, but emptiness. Emptiness caused, not by something that was once there and now no more, but by something she had yet to experience, but desperately craved. It was maddening.

She shook her head and grunted, pushing it from her thoughts, as she continued her precarious scramble up the hill. Monty had told her that _she'd_ managed to coerce Jasper into giving her a jug of the foul liquor they had concocted with the help of a few of the Trikru, so who knew what waited her on top.

Clarke had been surprised at how forgiving some of them had been towards her people, especially after Finn had slaughtered eighteen of their children and elders. She supposed they considered the debt paid. Finn had been killed, by her own hand, and burned with those he'd murdered. The treaty was tentative at best, their alliance as shaky as her trembling limbs as she finally crawled over the last rock to stand before _her._

"What the fuck do you want?" The voice was hoarse, almost rough, not surprising since the girl had barely spoken to anyone in days, not since they'd burned Finn days earlier.

She ignored her and instead plopped down next to her, an inelegant and slightly sweaty mess. She didn't say anything for a moment, instead pushing her hair off her sticky face as best as she could before lifting her hair off the back of her neck, grateful for the slight breeze.

"Why are you here?" _Her_ voice broke on the last word.

She finally turned her face to look at _her._ Raven's face was a map of her grief, and Clarke could clearly see each line and pinch, each slash across her skin. Her face was gaunt, the skin pulled too tightly across her cheekbones. Her eyes were rimmed in red, the fragile skin underneath smoldering and burning. Her lips were pressed tightly together, almost white like the first frost on a ridge.

"I came to check on you." She spoke the truth, but she spoke it slant. She didn't say that she had been driven, compelled to find Raven. That Raven had consumed her thoughts, burning through the synapses of her brain, long before the last few sleepless nights, long before she'd slid the knife into Finn's heart.

"You've done enough, Clarke." Bitterness soured her mouth, and her words trembled on her tongue. A part of her wanted to rage at Clarke, to scream at her with her last breath until her lungs threatened to shrivel and collapse. But she couldn't quite bring herself to do it. Her engineer's mind had already put together all the pieces, understood how each action fit into the overall scheme. Finn's death had been inevitable, and a part of her was grateful that Clarke had spared him the pain of the Trikru's reckoning.

And there was even a part of her that hated him, hated what he had done, what he had done for Clarke. Not that Clarke had asked it of him. It hadn't taken Rave long to realize, once she crashed to earth, that Finn was no longer her's. He belonged to Clarke, except Clarke didn't want him. And he was too blind to understand it. She had seen the way his eyes lingered on Clarke, hope flaring and dying with each heartbeat.

She supposed she couldn't blame him. Clarke was… she laughed under her breath. She could understand why he had fallen so quickly for her, declared his love with each sigh and whisper of his hands. She was a light, the North Star shining the way home, and they all followed.

"What's so funny?"

Raven jerked slightly in surprise, not realizing she'd laughed out loud. She shrugged and picked up the earthen jug resting next to her. She could hear the liquid sloshing around inside, and she figured she'd already managed to drink half of it. It helped numb the pain radiating through her hips, the fire burning in her lower back.

"Don't you think you've had enough?"

She deliberately took a long pull from the jug, her eyes clashing with Clarke's, both refusing to look away. She winced as it burned down her throat and settled into her mostly empty belly. She grimaced and scraped her tongue across her upper teeth. It left behind a foul residue on her tongue, thick and smoky.

"Not nearly enough, Princess. Not nearly enough." She set the jug down with a thump, her hand shaking slightly, and the jug skittered across the rock. She fumbled and watched with chagrin as the jug fell over, spilling its contents on the granite between them.

Clarke grabbed for the jug, managing to right it before too much spilled out. She wrinkled her nose at the smell, wondering how Raven had managed to drink so much of it and not vomited.

"Do not call me that. Ever." She snarled, her lips curling over her teeth. Her words came out harsher than she intended, but all she could here was his mocking voice quickly changing to a breathless chant and then a prayer.

She had regretted it the moment she'd said it, and she was befuddled at the remorse that prickled in her chest. She should hate Clarke. Clarke was the reason why Finn was dead, except she wasn't. Finn was dead because of Finn.

She rubbed her itching eyes, ignoring the slight tremble in her fingers. She wanted to stop thinking about Finn and the Trikru and the Mountain, her leg, and the coming war. But most of all, she wanted to stop thinking about Clarke.

"Why are you here, Clarke? Guilt keeping you up at night?" She had meant to sneer the last sentence, to fill each word with loathing and judgement, but instead the words trembled between them, hanging softly before falling to dust, too broken to bare the burden of their shared pain.

Raven knew she'd guessed correctly by the way Clarke's shoulders stiffened, not that it was particularly hard to know that the blonde wasn't sleeping at night. She'd overheard Abby telling Jackson that Clarke was refusing anything to help her sleep, instead the blonde tossed and turning on her small cot, her mind rioting with broken dreams and thoughts, until she bolted upright, cries dying on her lips.

"You dream about him too?" Raven's tone bordered on sympathetic, and the irony wasn't lost on her.

Clarke said nothing for a moment, unsure of how to answer, not sure she trusted herself to tell Raven the truth. She didn't dream of Finn, and maybe that was why the guilt prickled at her skin. Shouldn't she dream of the boy she'd killed? Shouldn't she be a good enough person to allow his ghost to haunt her, but she'd banished him from her heart and her dreams.

He'd come to her, quietly in the early morning hours when no one else stirred. He'd stood beside her cot, saying nothing, waiting. And she'd stared at him, her eyes memorizing each line of his face and the way his shaggy hair fell across his pale brow. He was beautiful in death, pale like the winter moon, his eyes filled with stardust. And she'd banished him, told him he had to go, his place was among the stars. And he'd left her dreams with crystalline ash falling down his cheeks. And she mourned him no more.

So she didn't say anything, worried it would only bring Raven more pain to know that she didn't dream of the boy Raven had loved. No, it was Raven she dreamed of, had been dreaming of since Raven had crashed to earth, since she'd stepped out of the shuttle and lifted her face to the heavens.

The image seared into her synapses, Raven with arms outstretched, face lifted to the heavens, blood smeared across her brow, twirling endlessly as joy spilled past her lips and rain kissed her face. Perhaps that had been the moment of truth, when she realized what she'd felt for Finn was simply a passing whimsy, a temporary connection. Because this burning star, this fallen seraph had enraptured Clarke, and made Clarke her own with hardly a thought or gesture.

And the truth of it lodged itself between Clarke's ribs, and she could barely breathe for the frost slithering along the fragile cage of her chest. She tried to breathe, to take a deep breath and gather her scattered courage, but it sat heavy, pressing her ribs a part, until she was sure she would scream from the pain of it.

She shook her head barely choking out the words, "No. Not him."

Raven grunted, choking on what bitterness was left in her mouth. She'd already known the answer, but she needed Clarke to say it out loud, so Raven could thrust her rage into the glowing coals of her pain and hammer a shield. She had nothing left to protect herself with, to hide behind. The last vestiges of her rage dying with each ragged breath Clarke drew, and part of her hated Clarke for eliciting such sympathy from her, this foreign desire to comfort Clarke.

Except it wasn't foreign. She'd dragged herself to the opening of her tent more times than she wanted to count when darkness lay thickest across the camp, her hips burning with pain, the brace digging into her withering flesh, to simply stare across the way to Clarke's tent. Once she'd made it all the way across the small camp to stand outside Clarke's door, her head cocked as she listened to the younger girl's ragged breathing, broken whimpers falling from her lips. And she'd turned away when she'd heard her own name, and pretended that she had never heard and never limped those long steps back to her own bed.

"You."

Raven had braced herself for the one word, but it still smashed into her with all the effectiveness of a hurled spear, and she gasped and whimpered, her hands grabbing at her chest, sure she was bleeding. But her fingers clutched at nothing but her ragged shirt, and her eyes fluttered closed.

"I hear you. Every night. You never stop screaming." Clarke shivered and rubbed her hands up and down her arms, wincing as the rough fabric caught at the small cut on her palm.

"I can feel your scream under my skin," she laughed and choked as her vision blurred. "I can't even hear my own heart beat anymore, can't feel it in my neck, just your scream pounding through my veins. I think..." she swallowed harshly, reining in her thoughts, "I think it is all that is left of me…your scream."

Raven didn't want to hear it, didn't want the words to lodge themselves in her chest, but they did, and she was helpless to fight the growing tide between them. She was sure it would swamp her and leave her even more wrecked, and the only lifeline was Clarke.

She bent her knees and dug her heel into the hard granite and pushed up with her hands, attempting to slide towards Clarke, but she could barely raise herself more than an inch or two, and her arms trembled with the effort. She growled under her breath, cursing herself for not eating much the last few days. Her appetite and strength had both waned in the last few days.

She tried again, tried to dig her other heel into the rock, but despite the support of the brace, she couldn't leverage her leg enough to help move her body. She settled back down with a huff.

"You know, you could help a girl out and scoot over this way," she muttered.

Clarke laughed wetly and scooted the few inches needed to press herself against Raven's side. She rested back on her hands, her left arm managing to find its way behind Raven, their shoulders bumping against each other, until they simply fit together.

"Did you ever love him?"

"Not the way you loved him, not the way he thought he loved me."

"Thought?"

"Finn was so enamored with earth, with the beautiful glowing trees, the two-headed stags." She waved her hand in the air before letting it fall limply back to her lap. She stared at her fingers, twisting them and rubbing them together, before reaching over and sliding her down on Raven's lower thigh.

"He was in love with they mystery of it, the romanticism." She snorted a little and whispered, "I think he thought he was Adam and I was some sort of Eve. And I think he needed someone to save, someone to take care of, and he thought it was me."

Raven laughed and shook her head, "He would. He was such a fanciful sort of buggar. But he had a good heart. He spent years saving me." She sighed and looked down at her leg, staring at Clarke's hand before carefully placing her own on top of Clarke's.

It felt strange, odd in an endearing sort of way. And when Clarke parted her fingers and raised the tips, nudging Raven's, pushing between them to tangle their fingers together, it also felt right. Solid and safe.

"He did. But earth broke him."

Raven nodded and mumbled, "Maybe he broke himself." She sighed and looked down at their hands again, marveling slightly at the feel of Clarke's fingers tangled with her own.

"What now?"

Clarke stared out across the camp below them, watching the people working around the communal fire. A few children ran around the camp, and their laughter just barely reached her ears, but it was enough.

"Now? Now we build a home." She let go of Raven's hand, and heaved herself to her feet, groaning at the stretch in her muscles.

"What's wrong, blondie? Getting old?" Sassed Raven, but she couldn't help but smile at the way Clarke rolled her eyes at her.

"Shusha. You're older than me." Clarke held out both hands and waited patiently while Raven thought about it. She knew Raven was stubborn and didn't like to admit that her leg held her back, but Clarke could easily read the pain painting lines along her skin.

She wanted to wiggle her fingers at Raven, huff at her and beg her to take her hands, but instead she kept her mouth shut, biting back each word, waiting for Raven to choose. And it was long moments until Raven raised her hands, catching Clarke's in her own; and Clarke supposed she probably looked like a fool with a smile too big for her face, but she didn't care.

She braced herself and leaned back, carefully drawing Raven to her feet, and when the older girl stumbled and cursed as her weak leg buckled, Clarke caught her in her arms, wrapping them securely around her waist.

Clarke buried her nose in Raven's hair, her cheek pressed to Raven's, salt stinging her eyes as she felt Raven grasp her shoulders and then lean her body into Clarke's.

"I didn't lie, Raven, when I told you I would choose you first." She turned her head to stare into Raven's eyes. "I wish it hadn't come to what it did, that there had been another way." She took a deep breath, pressing her lips to the corner of Raven's mouth.

"I chose to save you and not him. I couldn't bare the knowledge that if I didn't accept their Heda's sentence, I would lose you. So I chose you."

"You, Raven. It was always you. Always you."

And when the lone tear dripped out of Raven's eye, Clarke couldn't help herself, closing the last inch between them, her lips catching the tear. It was bittersweet, and it broke Clarke's heart.

Raven nodded, choking back sobs as the tears dripped down her cheeks. She pressed her fingers into the tops of Clarke's shoulders hard enough to leave marks, before sliding them around the back of her neck, the tips of her thumbs barely scraping Clarke's jawline.

"Ok," she breathed. She nodded her head again. It was enough. More than enough.

"Ok," she whispered again against Clarke's lips, her breath fluttering like butterfly wings.

"We build a home."

 **Thoughts?**


End file.
